It was reported that the Los Angeles MTA Board of Directors voted Thursday to use a Spanish translation as the name of the Gold Line’s Eastside rail extension, marking a first for the transportation agency.

The entire light rail line, which stretches from Pasadena to the eastern edge of East Los Angeles, will still be called the Gold Line. But the segment that opens this summer, traversing Boyle Heights and East L.A., will also be named “la Linea de Oro”. In her motion, County Supervisor Gloria Molina said that community members had asked that the rail line be referred to in Spanish, which she called a “cornerstone of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles.”

Art Herrera, 72, a lifelong Boyle Heights resident and a member of the Review Advisory Committee for the Eastside extension of the Gold Line, criticized the motion. “My kids aren’t going to say, ‘Dad, let’s take la Linea Roja to Hollywood,’ either. They’re going to say, ‘Let’s take the Red Line,’” Herrera said. “If we go to Mexico, they’re not going to change names to English. This is ludicrous.”

Pictured is a gold line train of the Los Angeles area MTA. Initially believed to be named for a particular reason, the gold line is now considered to be arbitrarily labeled and subsequently translated.